I was thirtyish. He was about fifteen years my senior. When he told me, I thought it was one of the hokiest things I had ever heard, but I smiled, nodded somberly, and thanked him for his wisdom.
He was trying to tell me that making love to one’s wife wasn’t just a sensual pleasure but could be a truly spiritual experience. He concluded with, “Sometimes our lovemaking is so wonderful that afterwards we get on our knees and thank God.” At the time I was extremely religious but not particularly spiritual, so, as I said, I considered it just so much church talk that probably didn’t even happen.
It was easy to dismiss but impossible to forget. Many times over the years I’ve contemplated what he shared with me. During the nearly thirty years since he told me that, Alice and I divorced for three years before remarrying. God taught me spirituality the only way I would learn it; I tried the prodigal son route and discovered how disgusting pig pens can be. He allowed me to follow a path of near destruction that finally led to loving redemption. I’m now one of those people who truly believe, “Religious people fear going to hell. Spiritual people have already been there.”
Through my wilderness wanderings, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about sensuality and spirituality. As a young minister I had experienced the hollowness of spirituality that wouldn’t allow sensuality. In the far country I experienced the emptiness of sensuality without any aspect of spirituality. By God’s grace, I finally discovered how fulfilling sensuality is when it is based on spirituality.
Yep, a lot has changed in the nearly thirty years since he told me that. I’ll hit sixty in a few months. I think he’s seventy five, but he’s in such great shape it’s hard to think he could be. His bride — he never stopped referring to her that way — died about a year ago. They’d been together nearly all their adult lives.
A few weeks ago we met again. We talked of old times, how much he misses her, and then told funny stories about things she had said or done. Somewhere during the evening I asked if he remembered telling me about their praying after making love. He did. He then told me that they had continued making love until three months before her death. He looked past me at something I couldn’t see as he said it, losing himself for a few moments in the warm memory of two becoming one. Then he said, “Joe, tell couples how important it is to make love all their lives. How crucial it is to have God at the core of that union. What it does to a marriage.”
I lay awake for a while that night, thinking of all the problems I encounter in helping couples. Sometimes I’m just helping them make marriage better. Often I’m helping them find the way to salvage a marriage that seems beyond repair. I thought how all of those marriages would be different if they did just that one thing. If they put God at the center of their sexual lives together. If they prayed together, in thanksgiving for their physical, emotional, and spiritual union at the conclusion of their lovemaking.
I believe that that type of sexual fulfillment, tied directly to spirituality, would keep a marriage together through anything and grow each person into being lovers for life.
On behalf of my friend I urge you to hear his wisdom and heed his counsel. Make love with each other tonight. When you finish, get on your knees at the side of your bed and pray. Thank Him for each other. Thank Him for the gift of sex. Ask Him to lead you to discover greater, more sensual couplings with each other, and to guide you into truly becoming one.
Do the same thing every two to three days for the rest of your lives.
If everyone did this it would put me out of the “marriage saving” business. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?